Fybromyalgia to health ...
touchdry
Posts: 32 Member
Hello Folks,
I am new to this group - and new to treating fybro with Keto. I'm in my second week of keto and feeling amazing ... prehaps I'm in ketosis ... whatever, the point is I need to talk to people who might understand better the workings of keto against fybro ... then onto healthy body YEY! But how do I do it? (That is not my question - although please feel free to give me what you have ... and we will take it from there).
At the moment, being almost totally ignorant of the idea of 'watching the cals and the carbs', I find it very challenging to create a daily food target, and at the same time try to juggle carbs, fat, prots. I also better mention that I have just come off a vegan diet, therefore have lost too much weight ... so I will want to put that back on AND put a bit of muscle on too. Am I looking too hard at all this? Perhaps it is a case of 'one step at a time'.
Oh, and finally, I would like to add that I am very much into wild foods (living in the deepest rural France ... surrounded by sowthistle, nettle, hawthorn leaves, Fat Hen, Callaloo, Dandelion ... etc! ... and perhaps the odd truffle or Morelle!! SLURP!). Anyone doing a wild keto?
I'll be asking my questions as they come to the fore ... in the meantime, thank you for reading this ... et abientot!
I am new to this group - and new to treating fybro with Keto. I'm in my second week of keto and feeling amazing ... prehaps I'm in ketosis ... whatever, the point is I need to talk to people who might understand better the workings of keto against fybro ... then onto healthy body YEY! But how do I do it? (That is not my question - although please feel free to give me what you have ... and we will take it from there).
At the moment, being almost totally ignorant of the idea of 'watching the cals and the carbs', I find it very challenging to create a daily food target, and at the same time try to juggle carbs, fat, prots. I also better mention that I have just come off a vegan diet, therefore have lost too much weight ... so I will want to put that back on AND put a bit of muscle on too. Am I looking too hard at all this? Perhaps it is a case of 'one step at a time'.
Oh, and finally, I would like to add that I am very much into wild foods (living in the deepest rural France ... surrounded by sowthistle, nettle, hawthorn leaves, Fat Hen, Callaloo, Dandelion ... etc! ... and perhaps the odd truffle or Morelle!! SLURP!). Anyone doing a wild keto?
I'll be asking my questions as they come to the fore ... in the meantime, thank you for reading this ... et abientot!
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Replies
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Check out our Launch Pad. We have a collection of FAQs, threads, and links. Head here first.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10348406/faqs-and-general-lc-info?new=1
Start with "What IS "Low-Carb"? An Overview and Guide." It's a summary of low-carb plans.
The easy version:- Carbs are a ceiling in grams.
- Meet your protein range in grams. (For you, since you need to put on weight, I'd stick to the higher half of the range to increase muscle mass.)
- Fill the rest of your intake in fat.
- Keep your electrolytes up, or you'll feel like trash.
Keto calculators are helpful in figuring out your calorie intake. MFP will set this up for you, too, but it will give you a ridiculous carb ceiling, so you'll need to fiddle around with the percentages to get it to read a ketogenic number. What that will look like for fibro? Hard to say. 50g is the keto ceiling for most, but those who are using the ketogenic diet as therapy for a condition often go lower. I know there are a couple who have used it for migraine control, perhaps they'll chime in. The important thing is to figure out what your calorie target should be for you and log your food consistently. It seems overwhelming, but once you do it for awhile, your frequent foods are saved so logging is quicker and takes less time, and you also begin to know "what is what" regarding carbs for different foods so you know possible plug-ins for different carb values if you need to change a food out.
I can not stress planning ahead enough. Or pre-logging for the day. Anytime you don't have to fly by the seat of your pants, it can only be good, right?
After you've read through about net carbs and electrolytes and fats, head over to:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10423197/open-threads-member-threads-on-low-carb-topics#latest. You can read through open threads about just about any topic you're interested in.
@tcunbeliever and @kpk54 are 2 members who may be able to speak more to the formulation of a ketogenic diet for theraputic benefits much better than I.
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Thanks Baconslave, much appreciated. I'll check out those links now, and see what I can gather. For fybro I have been advised to go for less than 20g carbs - for the last week I have managed to get it down to around 30g ... but hey, it is a total change from eating lots of wholemeal bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, to suddenly not eating any of those ... and I have to say, it is wonderful - I feel free ... almost lightheaded! ... I just need to get those muscles to re-appear!1
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Welcome!!
My husband has fibromyalgia and started keto about 2 weeks ago. In addition to keto, he also started taking iodine/b2/b3 in high doses to support thyroid health. After a month of that protocol, he's going to switch to an anti-viral regimen as his Fibro is suspected to be a result from a bad bout of mono as a kid and continuing epstein barr virus in his system.
He has noticed slightly improved energy, a near elimination of headaches, gradually improved pain levels, better sleep. We're keeping a daily log of all symptoms, sleep, food, etc. to see how everything is impacting his health. We're coming off a bad, month-long flare up where he could barely hold a glass of water, so I'm thrilled to see these improvements!2 -
Thats brilliant, Cadori ... I think this disciplined diet really moves the pain to somewhere else ... it has not entirely gone - but it has changed ... along with me declaring that I am in control of my body - so I can talk to it and demand change. I have only just stopped tramadol and ketaprofen in the last few days - and I'm telling my body "No withdrawal, OK?" ... the diet is truly helping here ...1
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If you want to gain weight, then you are going to need to set a calorie goal that is higher than your maintenance and do a progressive lifting routine - if it were me I would just let MFP calculate my maintenance target, then use the custom editor to add about 200 cal/day.
In terms of carb limits, I have found that I can get as high as 100g of carbs on lifting days and still keep my migraines under control with no problem. My goal for non-lifting days is 30g. I think it's pretty common to tolerate higher carb limits on days of strenuous activity, but pay attention to how you feel and adjust as needed.
Also, I hit some kind of magic about 100 days in and suddenly I don't have migraines even when I eat known migraine triggers, so if it's helping but you are not 100% better at least try to stick it out past 100 days...I have no idea what kind of magic happened at that point, but for me it was definitely a noticeable improvement.0 -
... the diet is truly helping here ...
You may just want to keep doing what you're doing!
I'm responding since I was tagged. I do not have fibromyalgia as an FYI. I have a neurological movement disorder, Cervical Dystonia aka Spasmodic Torticollis. I trialed keto solely to see if the diet may help minimize or eliminate the symptom/s which for me is mostly right rotation of my head head due to involuntary neck muscle contractions (primarily the left SCM). I have minimal pain compared to many others with CD/ST.
The ketogenic protocol I followed was low in both protein and carbohydrates with the combined intake not exceeding ~25%. I often kept the ratio higher (thus combined p+c <25%) and towards the end of my 52 week experimentation supplemented with up to 30% of my total calories coming from MCT Oil.
Unfortunately, while I did initially experience improvement (a minimization of the right rotational twist of my head due to involuntary neck muscle contractions, the improvement was short lived of only about 2-3 months.
Supplement your vegan diet and calories (for weight gain) by adding fat. High fat is what a ketogenic diet is. You can get your protein from sources other than animals and since you are/were vegan you are already aware of those sources. It might be a challenge to keep your carbs low in regards to preference but I say, not really. The original classical medically therapeutic diets are high fat. Since you need/want to gain weight, don't fear the fat. Coconut oil, avocados and fat bombs (with nuts, seeds and coconut) should be your friend.
A good place to start for seeing the basics of medically therapeutic ketogenic diets is with the Epilepsy foundations since that is where the diet originated and/or has been proven for medical use/effectiveness. This link describes the some of the various types of MT ketogenic diets and may guide your thoughts into further research. If you don't want the protein restriction (referring to your comment about putting on a bit of muscle) that comes with many MTKD, explore the Modified Atkins. Of course a well planned weight lifting program will help with that too.
https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/treating-seizures-and-epilepsy/dietary-therapies/ketogenic-diet
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Here's a good, recent video about ketogenic diets. Dr. Stephen Phinney is well regarded in the ketogenic circles. I'm providing it because he indicates a Well Formulated Ketogenic Diet should be only 10-15% protein. At most 20%. You can get that through your plant sources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0NE8WEH44A&t=222s 0 -
And here is an interesting study since you chose/choose vegan. It's only 20 people and only one study of millions but does support polyunsaturated fats so you can go forward with keto choosing nuts and seeds as a fat source. Given most people say eating a small portion of nuts is difficult, if you like them, then overeating them may be a benefit for you for weight gain. With that I will encourage an exercise program because gaining fat it is not usually the goal of those who want to gain weight.
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/89/4/1641/28442410 -
Welcome, as a former vegan also with Fibromyalgia I think you’re on the right track, I felt so much better when I went low carb from high carb and much better again when I made meat the focus of my meals.
Unfortunately for me very low carb levels only seem to work for a short period and I then crash for some reason so for me I’m now focusing on just general low carb. However a lot of people with conditions like this have amazing results from keto levels so I’m obviously just an outsider on this!
Keep us posted with your progress and good luck.0 -
Welcome to the group! I have FM and have done both Keto and Low Carb but in my case it was going serious gluten free for quite a while before LCHF that helped the FM the most. I honestly haven't seen much if any difference in symptoms since I started Keto/LC. I mainly ate less carbs to help with weight loss and maintenence (which worked).
Here's Medscape info from a couple of other Groups I belong to here on MFP: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10104290/medscape-medical-professionals-continuing-ed-site-celiac-disease-gluten-sensitivity-articles/p1
You can also find some major legit Sci info on FM here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10069528/being-knocked-out-after-any-activity#latest and here: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10104325/medscape-updates-on-clinical-studies-medical-professionals-continuing-ed-site-re-fm#latest
Some new studies/articles from Medscape just came into my inbox, but I haven't had a chance to read them yet.... will post on those other sites once I do.
All I can say is if something seems to be working.... keep it up.0
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